Students around the world are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to cheat. Why are students using AI despite the red flags? And how does this affect students?

Students sometimes believe using AI in an essay or homework is always accurate and will get them the grade they need. This is sometimes the case. AI can be wrong in multiple ways, giving the wrong answer, omitting information by mistake, and creating people, events, and even articles.

AI does this because it’s “training,” which is the process of feeding curated data to selected algorithms to help the system refine itself and produce accurate responses to queries. Some of the information that the AI learns can be misleading and cause the AI to give false information. AI is 88% accurate when it comes to its answers.

Even when students see the red flags, like receiving low grades on work they use AI for or completely wrong or non-topic answers, they still use AI on their work. Why?

Most people would call it pure laziness, and yes, that can be the case with some students. But many students struggle in school and AI might be the only thing keeping them going. An anonymous sophomore at Lafayette High School told The Times, “[Some] teachers can detect when I use it, but it keeps half of my grade up.”

Yes, AI can be beneficial in some cases when it comes to helping students keep their grades up, but it can also bring them down and impact their ability to learn foundational concepts needed for future classes. Not learning about a topic in a classroom can affect students later when they have finals or ACT. During standardized tests like these, students won’t have access to AI.

Not only does using AI affect both students and teachers. When teachers see AI in a student’s work, the student receives a referral and is no longer eligible for the National Honor Society.
Next time you think about using AI, think about the consequences you could receive and the red flags of AI.